Remote-controlled monkeys
At Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, researchers headed by John Cass report eliciting complex behavior e.g. hand-to-mouth movements, by stimulating specific areas in the brain of a Galago, a small nocturnal primate. This challanges the theory that there are few hardwired complex behaviors in the primate brain because most of the behavior is learned or volitional. These findings follow in the steps of Michael Graziano of Princeton University, New Jersey, who used long electical pulses in the motor cortex to stimulate complex behaviors in macaques. However, Kaas an co. were able to stimulate a greater number of complex movements, including aggresive facial patterns and defensive forelimb movements, in the simpler brain of the Galago. Further, they found that besides the motor cortex they could cause behavior by stimulating the nearby posterior parietal cortex. And to think only a few months ago I was freaking out that they had remote controlled rats.
Monkey behavior controlled through brain stimulation, Betterhumans.com
Microstimulation reveals specialized subregions for different complex movements in posterior parietal cortex of prosimian galagos, Abstract from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences